Five Words
by CycloneT
Summary: Five words was all it took for her to disarm him completely. [DoggettReyes]


Title: Five Words  
Author: Tracy  
Category: Doggett/Reyes  
Summary: Five words was all it took for her to disarm him completely.  
Rating: PG  
Archive: Yes to XFMU.  
A/N: I have none, so on with the show. Oh, wait. I'm gonna do a dedication thing, because I don't do them very often. This one is for my mum. Just because I love her, and because she tells me about the upcoming Robert Patrick movies on TV that I'd miss otherwise. 

xXxXx

She walked into the dark basement and couldn't resist. She knew she shouldn't; that it was downright unprofessional and extremely unfair, but the devil on her shoulder was loud and persistent, and in the end she hadn't really needed that much convincing anyway. So she cleared her throat, crossed the room until she was standing in front of his desk, perched herself on the edge and said it.

Five words. Five words was all it took for her to disarm him completely. Five words and she won the battle that he wasn't even aware he had been participating in.

It really was unfair. But it was a victory nonetheless, so she took it.

xXxXx

John chewed his pen distractedly, a little startled to realise that he hadn't actually done anything productive in what seemed like hours. Oh, he'd sharpened a couple of dozen pencils and emptied the wastepaper basket, but that had been before the air-conditioning had sputtered and heaved and finally died. Which had actually happened about two minutes after Monica had waltzed in and said those five words, and that hadn't helped the situation at all.

He glanced over at his partner and swallowed the urge throttle her. Or something. He didn't know how she could look so cool and collected when he could feel the sweat running down his back, soaking into his shirt and pooling in the waist of his pants. But there she was, sitting opposite him, gorgeous and unphased and dry, looking for all the world like the air-conditioning hadn't broken down, like it wasn't a thousand degrees in their underground jail, like she could actually breathe, damn it, while he was antsy, short of breath and slick with perspiration.

He hated her.

No, he didn't really. He just wished that she wasn't quite so . . . Monica. He shook his head, because even to his addled brain that didn't make sense. But he wouldn't have been nearly so uncomfortable if she hadn't said what she said, and since no one else would have ever voiced those words to him apart from Monica he decided that he did hate her after all.

Just a bit.

He went back to chewing his pen and glaring at the air-conditioner. It was too hot to do anything else, and he resented the fact that he was stuck at work – in a damn basement, no less – in the middle of the hottest day ever just because crime and conspiracies and the paranormal didn't stop for a heatwave.

Without the wonder of recirculated air the temperature had quickly risen. John knew his only hope in seeing out the day lay in trying to keep as still as possible in order to stay as cool as possible, so he filed the pencils away in the drawer and tried to find something to do that didn't require either effort or thinking.

The first part was easy. He gave up staring at the ceiling after about ten minutes and although all laptop solitaire demanded was a few clicks of a mouse button, it turned out to be too much effort. That just left the thinking. Unfortunately that was his undoing.

He couldn't get those five words out of his head. He stewed on them; turned them over and over and weighed each word independently of the others, as if he could discern a different meaning by separating the context from the nuance. He couldn't; Monica had meant what she said, and said what she meant. There was no getting around that. The funny thing was, if a man had said that to him he would have had to pick himself up off the floor and take himself to the nearest hospital. John Doggett was not the type to take those particular words from anyone. But Monica was most definitely not a man, and if he was honest with himself she wasn't just anyone, either. And that gave her considerably more leeway than anyone had had with him in a long time.

He wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The jury was still deliberating, but he suspected that they would return a favourable verdict. Besides, Monica had probably managed to bribe the judge or something. It was his judge, his jury, his courtroom, and yet that didn't seem to count for much of anything where she was concerned.

The whole system sucked, and those five words probably weren't even admissible.

He was well aware that he was being ridiculous, but what the hell else was there to think about when he'd given up on paperwork and was stuck to the back of his chair by a heat induced (or was that nervous) layer of perspiration?

It was 9:20 AM and he'd done nothing since she'd uttered those words. Nada. Zip. Sweet fuck all. Unless you counted the pencils. Which he probably should, because then he could at least honestly collect his paycheque at the end of the week.

He spat his pen out in disgust and turned to glare at his partner. She looked up at him and smiled, like she had no idea what those five words had done – were doing, to him. Then she went back to clicking away on her laptop, all professional and efficient and so obviously oblivious to his dilemma that he knew damn well that it was all a sham.

Oh yeah, he hated her.

With a passion.

He stood up and grabbed his coat off the stand. "I give up," he said. "You win."

"I win what?" she asked innocently.

"Don't play games with me, Mon. I'm hot, sweaty and frustrated. Now get your things and let's go."

"Took you long enough to cave," she muttered as they left their underground sauna.

"I was trying to prove a point."

"And what point would that be?"

He said nothing as they exited the building, but when they reached his car he stopped and cocked his head to the side as if only just discovering the answer. "I have no idea," he admitted with a bemused grin.

He could have made it through the heat; could have caught up on all his overdue reports and put in a productive days work but for one thing. Monica waltzing in, perching herself on the edge of his desk, leaning down to his ear and whispering, "I'm not wearing any underwear."

Yep. He absolutely hated her. Now it was time that he took her home and showed her exactly how much. And if he happened to find her underwear while he was doing that, then all the better.

He couldn't face another twenty minutes like that ever again.

End.


End file.
